Stressa - Islands, Mountains and Imminent Death on a Bicycle!

Stressa is a beautiful little town on Lago Maggiore surrounded by mountains and home to the Borromean Islands, Isola Bella, Superiore de Pescatori and Isola Madre.

I found a great little hotel and settled in as I met up with my first rain storm of my journey through Italy and what a storm it was.  Apparently because of the lake and mountain combination, the thunder and lightening were spectacular and never ending continuing all day and well into the evening.

Not quite the Death Road of La Paz, but it will do for me!

It was still a bit cloudy when I awoke, but I decided to head out to the islands anyway and toured the Palazzo a Giardini Borromeo which is the mome and gardens on Isola Bella.  It is truly a magnificent home and the gardens are perfectly manicured and home to quite a few albino peacocks.

It began to brighten up in the afternoon and after a discussion with the owner of the mountain bike place I decided to take a mountain bike up the gondola to the top of the mountain...up to 2500 m and ride down.. why you ask, not quite sure and after doing it, I am convinced it might appear to have been a suicide mission!  The owner Andre said it would be no problem for me as I looked SPORTY...he also told me hr thought I was 25, so I should have suspected his judgement right from the start! The top part of the trail was thankfully shut so I could only do the lower portion, I don't think I would have been able to master the top part after completing the bottom part and hearing that the top was actually more difficult.

Thankfully I was on the gondola going up with 2 brothers and one of their kids, Fabio, Justin and Renee and no, not that Fabio, definately not that Fabio!  At the top they asked if they could follow me...I laughed and said I did't think that was such a good idea, but we could ride together.  It was a tonne of fun after I burned through the rear brakes a bit to wear them in and give myself a bit of traction without sending me over the handlebars any more than I already was on the 20 degree slope.   I thank God those guys were with me as I would have been lost for sure had I not had them guiding me down the so called path.  We had a great time taking turns laughing at each of our techniques for attempting to survive the ride and at the end, we were all smiles, no broken bones, just some scratches and a few splashes of mud to show we actually did it.  It was not quite the Death Road of La Paz, but it will do for me!